Hey everyone! I feel the need … the need to discuss Stage 3 of World Events!

New Start Date for Stage 3 - August 25th, 12:00pm EDT

After some internal discussions, we decided to push back the start time for Stage 3 of World Events by a week. Instead of starting Stage 3 right away, our players will have a week to run adventures and prepare for the World Event. We made this decision both to give us enough time to thoroughly test World Events with our player test group, and to make certain Stage 3 is the quality you deserve. We are being extra careful that Stage 3 is polished and ready for our players.

Stage 2 of World Events will still conclude on August 18th at 12:00pm. AvA rewards and winners will be announced next week on schedule.

Please note: All screenshots and discussion in this blog are under development, are taken from the web version of the game, and may not reflect the final state of the system.

What is Stage 3 of World Events?

Stage 3 kicks off with our players contributing to unlock the World Event itself. Contributions can come from a variety of places, including spoils and items you acquired from the new Forging Bonds adventures. Each item has a Supply value attached to it; this supply value is how much you’re contributing to the World Event. The World Event has a defined Supply cost to unlock, which we set before the event begins.

Some of our players have been worrying about not having enough items to unlock the World Event; we have been pulling exact numbers of items from the game database, and will base the final amount of Supply needed to unlock the World Event on real-world amounts that you have collected up to that point. We won’t ask you to contribute 50,000 Intent Moneylenders if the entire community only has 5,000.

Lastly, you may contribute spoils from Stage 1 or Stage 2 of the World Event to unlock Stage 3, though they’re worth only a single Supply each.

The entire community can contribute to the World Event by running Adventures and acquiring Braavosi items, or by contributing their spoils from the Iron Bank’s earlier cycles.

As you contribute items, the contribution bar in the World Event inches its way upwards. Underneath the bar is a measure of your Alliance’s contribution, and while we plan to reward exceptional Alliances in future versions of World Events, the number is only there to brag to your friends about, for now.

After the event unlocks, the World Event switches to the next part: Sending out orders to your Sworn Swords and completing each part of the World Event.

The screen above introduces several new elements:

1. This is the World Event progress bar for this part of the World Event. This increases as you deal more damage in this part of the World Event.

2. This is where you order Sworn Swords to participate in the World Event. All players have five slots, but it may be possible to unlock more than five if you are in an Alliance and have the appropriate Tribute active.

3. This is where you see which awards you’ve unlocked for every participant. NOTE: The actual rewards will not be ore, wood, cloth, or a horse. We promise.

4. Alliance Tributes are special items or “buffs” that can be crafted and applied to your Alliance. They convey special bonuses for the World Event, and last for a certain amount of time.

5. The World Event keeps track of your Stage 3 World Event participants, as well as how much damage you have dealt. NOTE: While you are limited to 500 AvA participants, you may have an unlimited number of World Event participants.

As you compete in the World Event, you unlock better and better rewards for every participating player. Using the completely wrong and arbitrary items above, if you completed two parts of Stage 3 by the end of Stage 3, all players would get a bolt of cloth. If all four stages were completed, all players would get a horse.

NOTE: You only receive one reward at the end of the World Event. The highest award unlocked in the World Event is received.

World Event Rewards

While we’re still hammering out the exact reward, we do know that we want it to take advantage of the Item Evolution crafting system. Again, using a completely made-up item, the reward could look something like this:

If the community fails to complete the entire World Event, you will still have an opportunity to reach a Peerless item, as long as at least the first part is completed. Even if you only win a common item, you can still, slowly, craft them up to the legendary or peerless award. These recipes will be present for a limited amount of time after the event is over.

If Stage 3 fails to be unlocked, or Part 1 is not completed, participants will receive no rewards.

FAQ

What is this! Can only large Alliances participate?

No. Let me reiterate for everyone: The World Event is open to all players, whether in an Alliance or not. Everyone may contribute items to unlock the World Event (either through spoils, or items earned Adventuring), and once it’s open, anyone may send their Sworn Swords out on orders and work to complete the event. Anyone can participate, whether they’re in a small Alliance, a large Alliance, or no Alliance at all.

Do we need to contribute a specific number of these items?

No. Each item is worth a certain number of Supply. Stage 3 doesn’t need 250 Crossbows or 100 Moneylenders, each Moneylender or Crossbow is worth that much supply.

Do we need silver for Stage 3 unlock, or Stage 3 orders?

No.

What are Tributes?

We’ll go over these in a future blog. They’re crafted items that provide bonuses to your Alliance during the World Event.

Does each Alliance need to contribute those items to get in?

No. The contributions are across all players, all Alliances, and once the World Event is unlocked, anyone may participate, regardless of whether they contributed to unlock or not.

How is damage dealt in Stage 3?

Your Sworn Swords are sent out, deal damage like in ACs, can crit, can take wounds, and attacks take time to complete.

How many orders can we send out? Is it five orders per Alliance?

The number of orders you can send out is per player, not per Alliance. Your Alliance doesn’t have five slots; each person, whether you’re in an Alliance or not (because you can participate in the World Event even if you’re not in an Alliance) has five slots for orders. Some Alliance Tributes may increase the number of orders each member can send out, but everyone, whether in an Alliance or not, gets at least five orders they can fill with their own Sworn Swords.

More details next week!

As we continue to refine, complete, test, and balance Stage 3, we’ll be sharing more information with you. We wanted to give you a sneak preview of the Stage 3 and let you know about the schedule change as soon as we finalized the new schedule, which we did today.